Local officials are saying little about the prospect, while enraged Ohio officials are attempting to shut down the Youngstown prison and launch a federal investigation into all privately run prisons in 20 states.

Here in the District, city council recently authorized a private prison in the District and use of firearms by private corrections officers within the city.

Corrections Corporation of America, the Nashville, Tenn., company operating the Ohio facility, is one of two leading contenders for a contract from the Federal Bureau of Prisons for a facility to house 2,500 District inmates.

Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans, chairman of the council’s Judiciary Committee who earlier this year accepted $6,000 in mayoral campaign contributions from CCA officials and $1,000 from the company’s D.C. law firm of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips, declined comment on the pending contract award, scheduled to be announced Sept. 1.

But chances are high CCA will get the contract.

"There are really only two major companies in the nation that operate private prisons – CCA and Wackenhut," said Councilwoman Sharon Ambrose, D-Ward 6.

According to its published request for proposals, the Bureau of Prisons will give higher priority to contractors proposing to locate facilities closer to the District. CCA, which operates 78 private prisons nationwide, took control of a 50-acre plot at the southern tip of Ward 8 about two years ago in a land swap with the National Park Service. Wackenhut Corrections does not own property in the District, Ambrose said.

Manatt, Phelps and Phillips recently filed an application on behalf of CCA to zone the Ward 8 property for a prison. A hearing before the D.C. Board of Zoning Adjustments is scheduled for Sept. 14.

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Since CCA’s Youngstown facility opened last year, 13 stabbings, two murders and three other inmate deaths have been reported in addition to the recent escape, in which investigators say escapees may have been helped by guards. One of the six inmates who escaped remains at large.

Costs are likely to be high for the protracted manhunt that involved nearly a dozen law enforcement agencies including the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI, the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department in Youngstown and the U.S. Border Patrol. An official at the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department said his agency alone plans to bill CCA for about $60,000 in manhunt-related expenses. One Ohio law enforcement agent said the total cost for overtime pay, vehicles, helicopters, dogs and other expenses could reach half a million dollars.

Those costs apparently cannot be passed on to the D.C. government. The contract between CCA and the District government expressly states that CCA is responsible for the costs of recapturing escaped prisoners, said Walter Smith of the Corporation Counsel’s office. The contract for housing D.C. prisoners at the Youngstown facility is up for renewal in about six months.

A call by Ohio Gov. George V. Voinovich to close down the private prison in Youngstown has been stymied by Ohio Attorney Gen. Betty Montgomery, who said last week the state has no authority to close the prison.

Meanwhile, a class-action lawsuit pending in federal court against the District of Columbia, CCA and its top officials claims CCA violated its contract by housing maximum-, medium- and minimum-security prisoners together and thus failed to protect inmates from attacks by other inmates. The suit also charges that CCA failed to provide adequate training for its guards and proper medical care for inmates, said Jennifer Branch, a lawyer with the Cincinnati firm of Laufman, Rauh and Gerhardstein who is representing the plaintiffs.

According to D.C. native Mervin Jackson, 46, who was paroled from the Youngstown facility six months ago, officers at the prison used large electrified pronged shields to stun inmates. Jackson said he saw an inmate who did not move away from a window, as instructed, punished with electric shocks.

"Six officers lined up, one behind the other, with their hands on the shoulder of the one in front of them. The one in front had the shield. They opened the door to the cell and ran in like a train," he said. "They decided they were going to make an example of him."

Jackson said prisoners received electric shocks after being forced to strip naked and get down on all fours in the shower while guards sprayed mace in their faces.

Lawyers working on the case say prison officials routinely use tear gas and pepper spray on inmates.

Jackson recalled that the officers at the prison were the youngest he had ever seen. According to reports published in the Akron (Ohio) Beacon-Journal, two corrections officers from the prison recently appeared on Ohio television station describing the "bargain basement" training they received.

The case is expected to go to trial in early spring of 1999.

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Support for a prison within the District comes mainly from elected officials, Mayor Marion Barry and most members of the council. They say it will create 300 to 500 local jobs and tax revenue. Evans said he supports a private prison in the District to promote family ties among inmates. He said a women’s prison especially would help prisoners make a smooth transition back into society at the end of the sentence.

"It’s better to have inmates housed close to the community," said Linda Moody, chairman of a task force appointed by Ward 8 Councilwoman Sandra Allen to study private prisons. "The inmates are going to return to the community when their time is up and you have to rehabilitate them."

Several studies indicate that the more family ties are maintained while an inmate is in prison, the less likely he will be to commit additional crimes after release.

But many residents of Ward 8, where CCA is bidding to build, oppose a prison.

"Ward 8 has been a dumping ground for the city for years," said Eugene DeWitt Kinlow, leader of the Ward 8 Collaborative which opposes a prison there. "We have St. Elizabeth’s mental hospital, numerous halfway houses, the Blue Plains Waste Water Treatment Facility. These high negatives are permanent. Ward 8 could become the first and only permanent low-income ward in the city."

His group plans a protest at One Judiciary Square on Aug. 14.

Robin D. Ijames, said she collected more than 300 signatures from residents in The Wingates apartment complex, located across the street from the proposed prison, opposing the project.

"CCA has had so many breakouts already," she said. "What are they going to do when they escape? They are coming right into our neighborhood."

Residents were not informed of the plan, she said.

"People didn’t know anything about it until I knocked on their door with a petition," she said.

Ijames said letters from residents opposing the prison were not included in the record of public comment compiled by the Bureau of Prisons.

According Jeff Ratliff at the administrative division of the Bureau of Prisons, support for the prison was "overwhelming" at public hearings in January and April.

"The hearings were a farce," Ijames said.

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator